Guatemala’s rainforest is increasing due to neighborhood efforts

The forests of the Maya Biosphere Reserve are rising quite than shrinking, due to a community-led conservation programme

By Luke Taylor

A community-led conservation programme in Guatemala has halted and began to reverse 20 years of deforestation in an space that was severely threatened by the land grabs of cattle ranchers and drug traffickers.

Life is now returning to swathes of the Maya Biosphere Reserve that had been illegally cleared 13 years in the past. Regeneration of the forest means it was 25 sq. kilometres bigger in 2020 than in 2019 and grew one other 3.5 sq. kilometres in 2021. What had been uniform pastures …